Friday March 16, 4:16 p.m.
If I had still been in Japan on this day and at this time, I probably would have been having dinner at the family restauarant or the McDonalds near Urayasu Station. Then it would have been a few hours teaching at the old juku. But those days are long gone now. And they have been long gone basically since the earthquake last year. Once March 11th came by, the juku boss canned all classes, ostensibly to let my former students to attend to any problems caused by the quake (southern Urayasu got hit with the liquefaction pretty badly), but also most likely to start the ball rolling on her divorce proceedings. I sometimes think that was the real reason for the loss of my juku classes. She could no longer stand her husband and she had to move out...so I had no more space to teach anyone there. After my 1 month of refuge in Toronto until late April, I would never see my students...two of whom I'd known for 5 years. I was still in Japan for the remaining 7 months but no contact was ever made.
Now, I'm just kinda spinning my wheels. I've known for a few weeks that I probably wouldn't be called back to that school, and with a major family vacation next month, I can't really apply for any other positions. Basically, I'm just holding myself in limbo. I don't go out much since I can't afford to; I just meet friends once a week and try to stop any financial leakage. I actually called up TD today to cancel this Balance Protection Insurance which I think is basically not worth all that much. Luckily, I could pull it off without too much resistance from the operator. Still, I'm only relying on Mr. Moriya's biweekly lessons and the odd translation request from Cozy for any sort of income.
